MAS Aerospace Engineering’s India JV ready for take-off
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MAS- GMR Aerospace Engineering (MGAE) Company, a 50:50 joint venture between Malaysian Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Sdn Bhd and GMR Hyderabad International Airport, is to be launched soon. MAE is a subsidiary of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) while GMR Hyderabad International is a subsidiary of India-based GMR Infrastructure.
MAS said the joint venture is a third party Airframe maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility, the first of its kind for its scale, is located in the Special Economic Zone at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad. “The MGAE has one wide body hangar, one narrow body hangar with three bays and another paint-cum-narrow body hangar with associated workshops.
“It has the capability to provide base maintenance services, starting with narrow-bodied aircraft like Airbus A320, ATR 42/72 and Boeing 737-NG and subsequently wide-body aircraft like A330 and Boeing 777,” said MAS in a statement Monday. It said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation completed the audit of the joint-venture facility early this month, paving the way for airline operators to consider this facility for their MRO needs.
Next month, this facility will be audited by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and if the facility meets EASA’s stringent criteria, it will be able to attract European-registered aircraft for MRO services, MAS said. It said the MGAE currently has close to 350 employees and the bulk of the manpower is made up of local Indian skilled workforce, while retired MAS engineers and technicians are also employed at competitive remuneration packages to kick-start operations. In preparation for MGAE’s operations in Hyderabad this year, the MAE has trained 72 Indian engineers hired by MGAE, MAS said.
It said the Asia-Pacific countries, together with China and India combined, accounted for 23% of the total MRO expenditure. “The demand for MRO services is fast growing in Asia, given the large fleet orders and lower costs as compared to European Union and North America,” added MAS.